Speaker
Description
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with a population exceeding 102 million, currently operates with fewer than five nuclear medicine physicians, no PET/CT scanner, and no radiopharmaceutical production facility. Against a backdrop of more than 50,000 new cancer cases diagnosed annually and a single private radiotherapy unit serving the entire country, the gap between oncological need and diagnostic capacity is among the widest on the African continent.
This presentation provides an overview of the current state of nuclear medicine in Kinshasa, benchmarked against European standards, and examines the realistic conditions under which a medium-energy cyclotron could be established at the University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN/CGEA) to support the country's first oncology centre.
Drawing on lessons from both successful and failed initiatives across Africa, the presentation maps the key opportunities, alongside the critical challenges that any such project must address: such as energy infrastructure, human resource retention,and long-term financial sustainability.
| Track | Deployment of Nuclear Medicine in LMICs: Enabling Technologies |
|---|---|
| Presentation type | Oral |